Mrs. Betty Bowers – Politics Plus

Open Thread April 13 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 132026

Yesterday – was interesting. In the sense that “May you live in interesting times” is a curse. Eric Swalwell was accused of sexual misconduct, and has dropped out of the race for Governor, though maintaining his innocence. A quote: “I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made–but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s.” The Iran negotiations crashed, and the UnPresident announced a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz (I realize that is so absurd that anyone who knows anything about it would crack up laughing, but unfortunately it’s still “interesting.” Guess we’re going to experiment with piracy now. But it’s still “interesting.”) Trinette was by to save my sanity. I hope y’all have something at hand to save yours.

Let me tell you a story about charismatic Christianity (which is not a denomination, but exists across many denominations. While stationed in Okinawa, I started attending a charismatic Catholic prayer group. The people there were clearly doing their best to live as Jesus had taught, and I was comfortable. There was a church-approved pamphlet called “Life in the Spirit” which was used for instruction, and without going into detail, it was sound. When I left the USMC and moved to Alamosa, the Catholic church there had a charismatic prayer group also, which I also attended. It also used the “Life in the Spirit” literature. Until one day, the group leader received a bunch of new booklets intended to replace “Life in the Spirit.” The English ones were entitled “You will receive power” (the Spanish ones were titled “Recibirán Poder.” I was 30 at the time, which is not terribly old, but I was a grown-ass adult.” I immediately saw that this new emphasis – biblical though it was – would be the beginning of the end. Because it would attract people who want power (and put off those who don’t.) People who want power are the last people in the world who should have it. I left the group. The “charismatic Christian” in this article sounds like a case in point. People who want power do so because they believe that, with it, they can do anything they want – with no negative consequences. Reality simply doesn’t work that way.

Archived from The New Yorker. Just in case you thought there was nothing worse than MAGA.

At least this from Robert Reich is good. If you can stand another story – my dead friend Fred, who was an announcer at my favorite radio station and who died not that long ago (and the station played recorded tributes to him from co-workers, former co-workers, listeners for what seemed like a month, and who was an atheist and the kindest, most generous person I have ever met) was Hungarian-Italian-American – he would have been so happy about this.

From Andy Borowitz: “Ghost of Pope Francis to Viktor Orbán: ‘I Warned You Not to Let Vance Near You!'”

OK, I was wrong. The previous episode wasn’t the last one.

Open Thread January 5 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:13 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 052026

Saturday, as everyone knows by now, the United States invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its president (and, although not many are stressing that, the first lady.) This is way too big a story to deal with definitively here, and the (roughly 40 minute) video to which I link covers what this is going to look like in American courts. Our regime has obtained a superseding indictment which means that which judge it will go to first is probably already determined – I say probably because (as the video ends with) “there’s no box that squid can’t get out of.” I just sent a letter to my Senators – not that this Senate will do anything – but in it I pointed out that any form of immunity a criminal may enjoy in his own nation is not applicable to a defendant before the International Criminal Court. If the regime comes to get me, it’s up to you, Nameless. Also, thankfully, Trinette came by and made the afternoon a whole lot better. And I got a little knitting done also.

Referred by Daily Dose of Democracy from Yahoo News, this information should surprise no one. The key word, IMO, is “branded.” Every script I use is generic except for one, and that one isn’t covered by Medicare anyway, so I get that reimbursed through my HRA. My part D premium actually goes down tis year – only about $5 a month, but down is still down.

When I saw this article, I thought it might, through sheer numbers, address Nameless’s wondering why some people travel so far to adopt a pet. But it doesn’t. Adams County is shaped like a silhouette of the long side of a shoe box, assuming a dog or cat has been chewing at the southwestern third and taken a chunk out. That western third (less the chunk) is part of greater metro Denver, and the eastern two thirds is farmland. The population of Adams County is oevr a half million – right around 575 hundred thou. I would expect there to be enough interest in pet ownership among that many people to absorb up to 8,000 (or even 9,000) in any given year, so that some people looking for a pet would have to go elsewhere. And I would be wrong. The shelter has a fairly consistent population of 350-400 exclusive of farm animals )which they have just acquired a barn to house and don’t have stats yet.) From the videos we see, though, people who adopt a pet from elsewhere than home territory seem to be mostly people who were away from home when an animal adopted them, not the other way around. One can’t really predict or control that.

Joyce Vance reports on something I didn’t know existed – the Chief Justice’s annual report on the state of the Judiciary. She is not impressed.

This cartoon is from a collection called “What our allies are saying.” I am providing the link to it because it was impossible to pick just one.

Open Thread October 31 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 312025

Yesterday, The Mango Menace’s announcement on Wednesday that he would resume nuclear testing hit my inbox big time. I assume it hit the inboxes of y’all equally, so I’ll leave it there. And I had to stay up a bit late, but by golly, I finished that sweater.

A lot of us already don’t buy anything on Black Friday. This extension of that proposed by Black Enterprise may require a little more planning – but some situations call for desperate measures. There may be good reasons why some people cannot take part, but I hope all will at least consider participating.

In my experience, sure-fire solutions are virtually never things that anyone can do. This one from The Root would appear to come closer than most, but there still might be a learning curve. But I think it is well worth sharing anyway. At least it doesn’t require being a genius.

Well, as long as I already have two articles from black sources, I may as well go three for three. From The Root: The Mango Monster said something this week which implied he might be thinking about using the reserve after all – but in addition to being a chronic liar, he has been so spaced out this week that there’s really no point in even listening to him, let alone forming an opinion on what he might do from what he says. As to what starving people might do – well, two words – Jean Valjean.

Mrs. Betty Bowers Guest Video

PHP is a programming language used to build websites. We have it at all through our hosting partner, BlueHost. In order to update it, we have to go through Bluehost. During his life, TomCat was the only one who had access to our account there. I (JD) am now the only one. I have been to BlueHost and investigated updating our PHP to 8.3 or even to 8.1. I found instructions to do so - in fact, I found two conflicting sets of instructions. I went through one set of the steps and got the message that Our site could not handle 8.3, but that it had successfully updated to 8.1. I then went back here to see what it looked like. But I couldn't get in - either as an administrator or as a reader. It was just gone. I had to reach BlueHost by phone. It was determined that Politics Plus is in fact not compatible with any version of PHP newer than the one we have. BlueHost therefore uninstalled it for me, and the site came back to normal. Of course, like everyone else, I care about security. But I also am aware that TomCat elected to use different providers for several of the services that BlueHost provides, for instance backups. We are backed up daily - but not by BlueHost. However, out PHP is through Bluehost. I feel that if they are not worried about the older version, I am not going to worry about it. I believe that our security here is all or mostly through WordFence, whom I trust.